Thursday, May 26, 2016

Sorry, but it sounds funny.

My son the ornithologist tells me that next July he'll be in Washington attending the biggest ever meeting of bird scientists, so I looked it up: the American Ornithologists’ Union plus the Association of Field
Ornithologists, BirdsCaribbean, CIPAMEX, Cooper Ornithological
Society, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, Society of Canadian
Ornithologists, Sociedad de Ornitología Neotropical, and the Wilson Ornithological
Society.But when I told him about a group I recently joined, the Hearing Loss Association of America, he just laughed. One might even say he sniggered. "Sorry, but it just sounds funny." And then when I mentioned the organization at the seniors luncheon last week, the woman next to me giggled. "Sorry, but it just sounds funny." Come on -- what else would you call it? There are a lot more of us than there are bird people. What's more, as it happens, we're

also having a convention, also in Washington, also this summer (not me of course; I no longer travel.) And we're also joining with another organization. I hesitate to translate the IFHOH. It has its headquarters in Stockholm, that's impressive, right? So are you ready?...no giggling now... it's the INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF HARD OF HEARING PEOPLE.(My other son, the writer, would probably correct "people" to "persons".)

No particular reason for these two birds; I just came across the picture and felt they'd dress up this post.

1 comment:

Great post. Question: if the organization is called International Federation of Hard of Hearing People, why is the acronym IFHOH? shouldn't it be IFHOHP? Maybe they were afraid of being confused with IHOP?

About Me

Okay. For starters, I'm 91 now, but I'm not changing the blog title. This is my 6th year of blogging. This being old is interesting. If I start telling you what it's like, understand, I AM NOT WHINING. it's more along the lines of -- I feel like an anthropologist exploring a new world -- Margaret Mead telling you what life is like on New Guinea. (If you're old, you have heard of her. If you aren't, you're welcome here anyhow.)